.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Basically, you are saying that in Vermont, you (and landlords) can depend on the power system to work, so apartment complexes do not need backup power.

Texans cannot do this during really exceptional weather events. The events happen so rarely that they forget how expensive it is to fail to recover quickly, so they are unwilling to the extra money to maintain a sufficiently robust system.

Very true.  The system in the cold lands works because there are lots of crews ready to go, and because crew-sharing arrangements are in place, so when one State gets hit, crews from other States and Quebec are called in, a form of "mutual assist."  

Plus, in the urban areas the power lines are put underground, so you don't have the no. 1 problem, trees and tree limbs falling on the lines and knocking out the power.   Quite a bit of coin is spent each year on pre-emptive tree limb removal, on the theory that if the old sagging limb is cut down in the warm summer, then it is not going to fall during the ice-storm winter!

And yes, it makes the electricity expensive.  I pay 25 cents a KWH for retail power.   (Some of that is because the eco-activists demand "100% renewable," which is really nothing more than my local co-op buying RECs.) 

Also, a good number of the urban areas are located right smack next door to hydropower projects, as historically the river falls were the location where mills got set up.  So power lines run underground from the dam to the city, and that tends to make for a hardened installation. 

But overall, it is the investment in repair crews that saves the day.  Cheers.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 hours ago, NickW said:

I don't know what the power station voltage is but 60 hertz is the ubiquitous frequency in US systems. At what frequency below 60 is the CCGT likely to trip?

 

It will trip once the frequency starts to decay.  The reason is that the plant cannot run other than at the system Hz.  What will happen is that the system will "pull" the smaller generator to run at the mainline frequency, and if it attempts to lag, then voltage will drop first.  That voltage drop will trip out the generator. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 hours ago, turbguy said:

I meant on-line transfer from nat gas to distillate.

And here I was talking about my 40-gal day tank to the 3-gal tank on that 5 KW single-cylinder genset!  🤣

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

2 hours ago, turbguy said:

South Texas #1 is a nuc.

Most (if not all) generation would be tripped with a 5% underfrequency condition.  Some with even less.  Turbine blades are "tuned" to avoid damaging resonances at rated speed. 

To be honest, I don't know for certain.  There's significant transformer and generator considerations a well.

You've made lots and lots of posts. I don't have time to answer them all. However your info on wind turbines is dated. They don't "feather" the blades like an airplane can anymore, too cumbersome. I'm unaware of a single modern wind turbine that is direct drive anymore, they all have transmissions. Those transmissions produce steady hz output with a wide variety of wind speed input. It's the only way to "fly".

You mentioned needing 15-25 HP pumps to move the fuel around. If that's the case, multiply by 750 (or so) to convert to watts required. Figure s minimum of a 20 kw genset, which itself needs fuel to power the pumps to fuel something else…

When you have to plan on things going wrong, there's a lot to plan for. When engineers do this, they hand massive purchase requests to mgt, who respond with a request for probability of all those things going wrong. Engineers come back with sub single digit percentages and the businesses reject the request. ERCOT is a voluntary organization coordinating among multiple for profit entities. Those entities report to shareholders who likely balk at billions being spent on 0.01% likelihood events. 

In Washington State, wind operators happily pay huge fines rather than stopping their turbines during spring runoff. The dams are forced to waste 100's of MW of waterpower by bypassing their turbines since the juice isn't needed and the grid can't handle both. It's not even a voluntary system, but they're not all "gentlemen" in agreement. 

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, Ecocharger said:

The proof of the pudding....I have yet to see any global warming model predict anything that actually happened. That is how you identify a defective model.

 

Hansens 3 scenario models (based on different emission characteristics) against whats actually been measured

I'll let you guess which scenario is closest to what actually happened. 

 

[turbguy + 1,544]

2 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

You've made lots and lots of posts. I don't have time to answer them all. However your info on wind turbines is dated. They don't "feather" the blades like an airplane can anymore, too cumbersome. I'm unaware of a single modern wind turbine that is direct drive anymore, they all have transmissions. Those transmissions produce steady hz output with a wide variety of wind speed input. It's the only way to "fly".

You mentioned needing 15-25 HP pumps to move the fuel around. If that's the case, multiply by 750 (or so) to convert to watts required. Figure s minimum of a 20 kw genset, which itself needs fuel to power the pumps to fuel something else…

When you have to plan on things going wrong, there's a lot to plan for. When engineers do this, they hand massive purchase requests to mgt, who respond with a request for probability of all those things going wrong. Engineers come back with sub single digit percentages and the businesses reject the request. ERCOT is a voluntary organization coordinating among multiple for profit entities. Those entities report to shareholders who likely balk at billions being spent on 0.01% likelihood events. 

In Washington State, wind operators happily pay huge fines rather than stopping their turbines during spring runoff. The dams are forced to waste 100's of MW of waterpower by bypassing their turbines since the juice isn't needed and the grid can't handle both. It's not even a voluntary system, but they're not all "gentlemen" in agreement. 

Perhaps your info is outdated as well?  Mine might be. You are aware of DFIG's, no?  Variable speed input, constant hertz output (at whatever hertz is desired).  Gearbox?  Yes.  Did you mean a variable speed transmission?  Not required.  DFIG's are "like" VFT's (Variable Frequency Transformers, which Texas' tie to Mexico uses). 

And certainly wind turbines vary pitch.  Quite big rolling element bearings required.  Do they "feather"?  Yup.  Do they feather completely?  Not sure.

The distillate fuel pumps I'm referring to are for Large CT's.  My apologies if that wasn't clear.  Typically, they are driven from accessory gearboxes, or are stand alone motor-driven.

Risk=Probability * cost of event.  "Once every 15 years" * say, $50 billion"=?  I don't know.  Ask underwriters.  Sounds like you can justify 1/15th of the cost every year.

If you don't need the water for generation, the reservoir is "full", there's no risk of increased CFS flow causing unacceptable flooding, and irrigation needs can be met, the downstream river and ocean can use it, as it did before the dam was built.  Otherwise, the fines should be (and may be) variable to discourage wind.  And if wind generation varies (as it will), you supplement with hydro generation.  They are very good for that purpose (albeit with increased wicket gate, or other, maintenance).

 

BTW, who do the wind owners pay those fines to?

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

This disruption is going to get real ugly very fast. The financials are starting to come in, there insurance claims will be staggering. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-texas-residents-hit-with-soaring-electric-bills-winter-storms-2021-2

Why some Texas residents are ending up with $5,000 electric bills after the winter storms

Putting citizens on time payments? 

 

 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

It will trip once the frequency starts to decay.  The reason is that the plant cannot run other than at the system Hz.  What will happen is that the system will "pull" the smaller generator to run at the mainline frequency, and if it attempts to lag, then voltage will drop first.  That voltage drop will trip out the generator. 

At what point though? 

In the Uk system 48.9 seems to be the trip point (we are 50 Hertz) 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

Colleagues, we have all been yelling at each other to little purpose, but I think there is one thing that Texans should learn from Californians. When the for-profit companies get blamed for an exceptionally costly event, then the legal system allows every damaged party to claim damages to be paid by the power companies. This has two consequences.

First, the for-profit companies must declare bankruptcy: there is no choice because there is just not enough money to pay all those claims. because of the way liability laws work, any entity that is found to be partially to blame gets hit for as much money as they have, regardless of how much of the "blame" is really theirs and how much is an "act of God". Bankruptcy makes it that much harder to actually fix any underlying problem. This is not red/blue, democrat/republican, or liberal/conservative. It's a consequence of centuries of case law.

Next, after the bankruptcy, the reorganized companies are forced to try to defend themselves. against further potential lawsuits. In California, the companies now shut off power completely to any area that is forecast to have high risk of fire: (high winds, high temperatures and low humidity). I don't know how this would work in Texas, but something like legal penalties on consumers for overuse of electricity during an extreme event might happen.

[NickW + 2,714]

12 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

This disruption is going to get real ugly very fast. The financials are starting to come in, there insurance claims will be staggering. 

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-texas-residents-hit-with-soaring-electric-bills-winter-storms-2021-2

Why some Texas residents are ending up with $5,000 electric bills after the winter storms

Putting citizens on time payments? 

 

 

Paying spot prices works well most of the time but if you are on that arrangement you need something to tell at what time to trip the consumer unit main fuse and sit there under 3 duvets by candle light. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, turbguy said:

 

BTW, who do the wind owners pay those fines to?

Nobody.  Because the plant owners are not the responsible entities, those are the limited partners in the partnership.  The "owners" are the General Partners and they are immune from fines. And the reason for that is that the General Partners are (typically) Wall Street types with cynical lawyers who write the contracts for the partnership, making the hapless and dull-witted limited partners liable. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

On 2/20/2021 at 12:11 PM, surrept33 said:

Keep in mind that editorial .....

I think it's fine to publish it, but her [history of such] claims are pretty provocative and don't match all the direct and indirect evidence (the IPCC literally cities thousands of papers!) we have about the greenhouse gas effect itself as it relates to anthropogenic climate change.

The IPCC has been caught red handed so many times blatantly eliminating data and ignoring data as to be laughable.  They are NOT scientists.  They are a political organization. 

Have you bothered to read any of the papers they "cite"... they all start the same... world gonna end due to CO2 in the abstract, then you read the body of the paper and they all say... well our data does not come even close to models, and in fact usually says the opposite, and then we get to the conclusion... CO2 is going to kill the world and then in TINY print... with healthy plants and crustaceans!

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

3 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Very true.  The system in the cold lands works because there are lots of crews ready to go, and because crew-sharing arrangements are in place, so when one State gets hit, crews from other States and Quebec are called in, a form of "mutual assist."  

Plus, in the urban areas the power lines are put underground, so you don't have the no. 1 problem, trees and tree limbs falling on the lines and knocking out the power.   Quite a bit of coin is spent each year on pre-emptive tree limb removal, on the theory that if the old sagging limb is cut down in the warm summer, then it is not going to fall during the ice-storm winter!

And yes, it makes the electricity expensive.  I pay 25 cents a KWH for retail power.   (Some of that is because the eco-activists demand "100% renewable," which is really nothing more than my local co-op buying RECs.) 

Also, a good number of the urban areas are located right smack next door to hydropower projects, as historically the river falls were the location where mills got set up.  So power lines run underground from the dam to the city, and that tends to make for a hardened installation. 

But overall, it is the investment in repair crews that saves the day.  Cheers.

That post spoke volumes to Oregon's adventures into power grid failure's. In the past yr alone this state has burned down 1/4 of the state due to power lines not being maintained, power lines literally threaded thru the tree's canopy. the current outage is due to age old trees being weighted down with ice.. branches snapping power lines in every corner of the metro area. There are some areas so many tree's and large limbs on the ground it resembles a war zone....

Perhaps the greatest lack of responsible mgmt ive yet to see, and not a word from the press or the citizens. Its a be kind to the tree's issue.old growth has value?

[turbguy + 1,544]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

Nobody.  Because the plant owners are not the responsible entities, those are the limited partners in the partnership.  The "owners" are the General Partners and they are immune from fines. And the reason for that is that the General Partners are (typically) Wall Street types with cynical lawyers who write the contracts for the partnership, making the hapless and dull-witted limited partners liable. 

How does an entity go about pay fines to no one?

Wall Street strikes again?  Don't people read all the "fine print"?  Perhaps that's limited to 1/2 the population that's below the median?

Edited February 21, 2021 by turbguy

[turbguy + 1,544]

4 hours ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

That post spoke volumes to Oregon's adventures into power grid failure's. In the past yr alone this state has burned down 1/4 of the state due to power lines not being maintained, power lines literally threaded thru the tree's canopy. the current outage is due to age old trees being weighted down with ice.. branches snapping power lines in every corner of the metro area. There are some areas so many tree's and large limbs on the ground it resembles a war zone....

Perhaps the greatest lack of responsible mgmt ive yet to see, and not a word from the press or the citizens. Its a be kind to the tree's issue.old growth has value?

Either put them underground ($$$$), trim the trees ($) , or ask for problems.

Electricity is REALLY addicting.  The withdrawal symptoms are horrible and last a long time.

Edited February 22, 2021 by turbguy

[turbguy + 1,544]

2 hours ago, NickW said:

At what point though? 

In the Uk system 48.9 seems to be the trip point (we are 50 Hertz) 

I suspect the USA is similar WRT percentage frequency decay, but I need to look that up since it occurs infrequently (pun intended).

 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

2 hours ago, NickW said:

 

Hansens 3 scenario models (based on different emission characteristics) against whats actually been measured

I'll let you guess which scenario is closest to what actually happened. 

 

Why did you publish this absurdity?

Hansen Scenario A had a 1.5% CO2 increase/annum... we had CO2 increase of ~2% per annum!

SO, if Hansen et al, were even CLOSE to correct, then our temperatures should be ABOVE scenario A, by ~25%. 

Scnario B: Same CO2

Scenario C reduction to 2000 levels of atmospheric CO2... 

So, even assuming the data and everything is accurate... then Hansens's own predictions/model that everyone kow-tows and worships are 100% garbage.

Or another way of saying, CO2 has zilch to do with the climate, but hey, that is called.. <<GASP!>> Science

[turbguy + 1,544]

i recon that being a licensed plumber in Texas would be mighty advantageous now.

Edited February 21, 2021 by turbguy

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

28 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

That post spoke volumes to Oregon's adventures into power grid failure's. In the past yr alone this state has burned down 1/4 of the state due to power lines not being maintained, power lines literally threaded thru the tree's canopy. the current outage is due to age old trees being weighted down with ice.. branches snapping power lines in every corner of the metro area. There are some areas so many tree's and large limbs on the ground it resembles a war zone....

Perhaps the greatest lack of responsible mgmt ive yet to see, and not a word from the press or the citizens. Its a be kind to the tree's issue.old growth has value?

 

Lets put this in perspective shall we?  Oregon/Washington have ALWAYS had massive power outages every year.  Reason?  Giant tall trees taking out giant tall power lines. 

It is not residential power lines disrupting the power other than in local small areas and all of those people have generators(myself included) and we are the ones clearing the trees off the roads/lines and not the power company.  This does not happen in the East with their shorter trees.  Trees in Western Oregon/Washington are not.  What happens rarely is that you get freezing rain which coats the trees and takes them down with snow thrown in for good measure, especially if a small wind event happens afterward.  Ground is saturated so little holding power for the roots, the trees get coated in a cm of ice if not 2 cm, and then a wind event happens and the giant firs/hemlocks/cedars/maples/oaks get taken out. 

In Oregon/Washington where it does not matter if you have a standard 40 foot cleared zone with standard ~75 high powerlines from the Big Boy power lines.  When you have young 80 year old 120-->150 foot tall trees it does not matter.  The big powerlines are going down.  These trees routinely take out the very big tall power poles, not just the power lines and have even taken out the steel poles as well, so...

Longest we were without power was 3 weeks and our power every year was out for a week on average.  So all of you whiners out east or in Texas, where you bitch if your power even flickers for a couple hours.... Be grateful lumber is so cheap due to these giant fast growing trees out here in the west and we put up with very long consistent power outages due to our tall trees. 

[turbguy + 1,544]

36 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Lets put this in perspective shall we?  Oregon/Washington have ALWAYS had massive power outages every year.  Reason?  Giant tall trees taking out giant tall power lines. 

It is not residential power lines disrupting the power other than in local small areas and all of those people have generators(myself included) and we are the ones clearing the trees off the roads/lines and not the power company.  This does not happen in the East with their shorter trees.  Trees in Western Oregon/Washington are not.  What happens rarely is that you get freezing rain which coats the trees and takes them down with snow thrown in for good measure, especially if a small wind event happens afterward.  Ground is saturated so little holding power for the roots, the trees get coated in a cm of ice if not 2 cm, and then a wind event happens and the giant firs/hemlocks/cedars/maples/oaks get taken out. 

In Oregon/Washington where it does not matter if you have a standard 40 foot cleared zone with standard ~75 high powerlines from the Big Boy power lines.  When you have young 80 year old 120-->150 foot tall trees it does not matter.  The big powerlines are going down.  These trees routinely take out the very big tall power poles, not just the power lines and have even taken out the steel poles as well, so...

Longest we were without power was 3 weeks and our power every year was out for a week on average.  So all of you whiners out east or in Texas, where you bitch if your power even flickers for a couple hours.... Be grateful lumber is so cheap due to these giant fast growing trees out here in the west and we put up with very long consistent power outages due to our tall trees. 

Tree-power line incidents are primarily localized to the distribution network, and require a lot of localized effort to restore.  Power companies will use available (limited) resources to repair service that restores the most customers first, then work down to individual meters that had the service entrance feed damage last.  At times, such repairs may require interrupting service to unaffected customers for the safety of linemen.

Rarely (very rarely) do tree-transmission line incidents occur, and they can be catistrophic.  That caused the NE cascading blackout in the summer of 2003, when a transmission line overheated, drooped, and faulted to vegetation.

Depending on the specific cause(s) of service interruption, you could be back in an hour (back-fed from other locations in the network), or much longer. 

Be prepared.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

13 minutes ago, turbguy said:

Rarely (very rarely) do tree-transmission line incidents occur, and they can be catistrophic.  That caused the NE cascading blackout in the summer of 2003, when a transmission line overheated, drooped, and faulted to vegetation.

Depending on the specific cause(s) of service interruption, you could be back in an hour (back-fed from other locations in the network), or much longer. 

Be prepared.

Here is a nice partially summation of last 20 years... Check out the first tweet with the info graphic.  Ignore the article.  Only main difference here is that we have a small population and no one pays attention to S. Alaska... https://www.kptv.com/news/strong-winds-cause-power-outages-downed-trees-in-portland-metro/article_c79ac1be-11f3-11e9-bf34-bfb0e4f1efbf.html

[turbguy + 1,544]

19 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Here is a nice partially summation of last 20 years... Check out the first tweet with the info graphic.  Ignore the article.  Only main difference here is that we have a small population and no one pays attention to S. Alaska... https://www.kptv.com/news/strong-winds-cause-power-outages-downed-trees-in-portland-metro/article_c79ac1be-11f3-11e9-bf34-bfb0e4f1efbf.html

Impressive video in the second tweet!

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

2 minutes ago, turbguy said:

Impressive video in the second tweet!

Yea, pretty sweet watching that light up eh!

Setbacks at substations for trees out here are enormous at the substations at least, though not far enough as 4? years ago a major substation got bombed by a tree and the whole thing went up in a gargantuan flash(I actually saw it over the horizon).  Biggest damned flash I have ever seen, lit up the entire horizon for half a minute.  We got lucky, we were on a different circuit that year. 

[Coffeeguyzz + 454]

An outstanding article was just re-posted on Zerohedge "Electricity 101 ...", co-authored by Cleary and Palmer.

It tackles this multifaceted issue of electricity pricing in a (mostly) reader-friendly manner.

While the sections on 'Energy Markets' and 'Capacity Markets' are vitally important to understand, the brief final paragraph  offers insight into the current state of affairs, most dramatically displayed by the recent events in Texas.

 

Good stuff for people trying to get a handle on what is going on.

 

 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

@NickW, @Gerry Maddoux, @Dan Clemmensen @turbguy  et al

The Texas energy disaster definitively explained. Clear, concise, accurate and written by a respectable scientist I admire. You'll see that Gerry and I were pretty accurate in our assessment. If, after reading this some of you still wish to argue I'll just refer to his data and you'll be left arm waving I suspect. Blaming gas plants for this is like blaming a doctor who saved 400 patients working nonstop for 4 days in a disaster for letting 50 more die when he passed out from exhaustion. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Ward Smith
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